Bryan Sachse asks: Many fans are complaining about Mara as an owner. My question is — assuming the season remains bad — might it make sense to hire a new team president or alternatively a consultant to lead the search for a new GM/coach — (or even decide to keep either or both) rather than have John Mara make that decision?
Ed says: Bryan, I don’t think more layers to the organizational structure is the answer. The Giants are already the only team with split ownership. The Mara and Tisch families have equal, decision-making shares. While we always say decisions are John Mara’s, the reality is that Steve Tisch has an equal voice because the families are equal financial partners. That brings a set of complications no other NFL team faces.
Think of it like a marriage. Neither party in a marriage always gets his or her way. There are always compromises. In the case of the Giants, that can sometimes cloud how things get done.
Remember, the Giants used former GM Ernie Accorsi as a consultant when they hired Dave Gettleman as GM. That led to a “search” where Gettleman and Louis Riddick were the only candidates, and Accorsi pushed for Gettleman. You think maybe that had something to do with Accorsi doing Gettleman a solid after he hand-picked Jerry Reese as his successor instead of Gettleman when he stepped down?
The Giants also used a consulting firm, Korn Ferry, to vet candidates before they hired Joe Judge as head coach.
No matter how the process works, or how many layers they add to it, major decisions like who the next general manager or head coach are going to be will continue to be made by ownership.
Salary cap questions
Patrick Morris asks: The Giants are one of only two teams in the NFL that have zero dollars in void years in contracts. The other team is the Patriots. And of course, the Eagles lead the league in void year contract value. The median team has ~$30 million in void year contract value.
In a salary cap imposed system, does an insistence on having no void years in any contracts put the Giants at a competitive disadvantage, if almost every other team is using this financial tactic?
Jeffrey Jacobs asks: I was reading earlier today (Sunday, 10/5) that the Giants are actually going to play 2 men short due to not having enough cap space. For years we have been hearing about the Giants cap situation. Aside from managing the draft, managing the cap seems to be the most important part of the General Managers’ job – and it would seem to be one that Joe Schoen has done a terrible job at. Imagine what this defense would look like if Leonard Williams and Xavier McKinney had not been cut loose for cap reasons. I don’t understand why the Giants are always at the bottom of the league in cap space, and why they refuse to follow the Eagles in using void years and pushing money into the future to build a better team.
Your thoughts?
Michael Zalackas asks: I just read that the Giants have less than two million in cap space left. What can the Giants do to help find more cap space?
Ed says: Lots of salary cap questions this week, and justifiably so. GM Joe Schoen was handed a crippling salary cap mess when he took the job, pretty much cleaned it up, and has now made a mess of his own. I will do my best to hit the different points raised in the questions above.
In terms of not using void years, I absolutely believe that has been a mistake. When your competition is using a tool to improve its current roster, and we know the Philadelphia Eagles use void years to an extreme, and you are not using that same tool you are putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage. It doesn’t make sense to me.
I understand that when you push money into the future, that bill eventually comes due. But the salary cap is exploding year over year as the NFL is simply drowning in money. If you push $20 million ahead this year by using void years, that will be a far lower percentage of the cap in three or four years when you have to pay it than it would be today.
Yes, the Giants played against the Saints with two openings on their 53-man roster. Now, to be clear, that does not mean they played with two fewer players. Both teams dressed 48 players. The problem was that by not adding two players to their 53-man roster they left themselves with two fewer players to choose from. It certainly would have been a good thing to have wide receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey available, especially after Darius Slayton was injured. We saw Thursday night how Humphrey can help the Giants. The only valid explanation for not filling those two roster spots was the lack of cap space, and that is a travesty in Week 5.
How can the Giants create more cap space? They have already restructured the contract of Andrew Thomas. They did the same with Dexter Lawrence a year ago. I guess they could go back to Lawrence again, but I would not want to do that. They could try to restructure Brian Burns’ contract.
Other than that, you are looking at whatever incremental savings you could get from trading Russell Wilson or cutting players like placekicker Graham Gano or defensive tackle Rakeem Nunez-Roches. Honestly, I thought the Giants would cut both of those players in the offseason to save cap space. Gano is still good, but for the third straight year he is on IR and they are paying him not to kick. Nunez-Roches is really the fourth defensive tackle, yet carries a bigger cap hit than Roy Robertson-Harris or rookie Darius Alexander.
I can’t look at any of the contracts Schoen has signed a player to and thought “that’s a terrible contract.” We can argue about whether giving Wilson $10 million after having already signed Jameis Winston was money well spent. The Giants probably should not have given James Hudson a two-year deal. I don’t think, though, that dishing out terrible Kenny Golladay-esque contracts is the issue.
What truly bothers me about the way Schoen manages the cap is that every general manager understands that because of injuries, practice squad elevations, free agent signings, etc., a team will need somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million in cap space to handle operating costs throughout the season.
Per Over The Cap, the midpoint in available cap space this season is the Eagles with $11.6 million and the Los Angeles Chargers with $10.6 million.
Despite knowing he will need that money, Schoen has blown far past that number and left the Giants scraping for in-season operating money two years in a row.
Christopher Scanlon asks: With the loss of Malik Nabers, the Jalin Hyatt conversation comes back into very sharp focus. Hyatt was very productive in college from the slot. He’s desperate to play from the slot. Thus far, the Giants have more or less refused to use him where he has been successful. And for what? So that Robinson, who for me is nothing special and clearly seems to have been a reach, can play that position? Isn’t the obvious move here to move Robinson outside and to make one last honest attempt to salvage Hyatt and the season? Is this more of the stubbornness from management that we become accustomed to? Would you like to see Robinson outside and Hyatt tried at his natural position?
Ed says: Christopher, you sent this question before Sunday’s game against the Saints but I think there is still validity in answering it two games later.
No, I don’t think the Giants should move Wan’Dale Robinson for Hyatt. Why on earth would you move a successful, if limited, player to a position where he will clearly fail because of his physical limitations, for a lesser player who has really done nothing to earn playing time, or the trust of his coaches and quarterbacks?
Do you seriously believe Hyatt can save the season? Do we know he would succeed in the slot? I love the kid, but he doesn’t get open and he hasn’t shown any real ability to play through contact and catch anything contested. Did you watch on Sunday how helpless he looked on the two deep balls Jaxson Dart threw him?
I know Hyatt played in the slot at Tennessee, and would like to be used there more often in the NFL. He has not earned the right to ask the coaching staff to move someone else for him. Not close.
Brian Misdom asks: As we are staring down another lost season, it seems Daboll will have a tough time saving his job. How about Schoen? Reports going back to last season indicated they aren’t a package deal, but I think his seat should be just as hot.
He inherited a cap mess but four years later we also have the least cap space available. His drafts have been uneven (while I’m hopeful for this last draft) and he’s made a number of questionable personnel decisions.
Is Schoen’s job really more secure? If things keep on like this, how do you see it unfolding?
Ed says: Brian, I would say that Schoen is “more secure” than Daboll. Does that mean he isn’t vulnerable? Absolutely not. There is too much water under the bridge to believe there aren’t valid reasons to move on from Schoen as well as Daboll.
There were far too many misses in the early rounds of the 2022 and 2023 draft classes. Even though almost every pick, with the exception of Wan’Dale Robinson, was praised and understandable at the time too many have not not worked out. The Giants would be a much different, and better, team if Evan Neal, Josh Ezeudu, Deonte Banks, John Michael Schmitz and Jalin Hyatt were the players the Giants expected them to be. That is a LOT of early-round misses.
The high number of talented players who have gone on to have success elsewhere is embarrassing, even though I can make what I believe is a valid case for why it was correct to make each of those moves. Maybe the problem isn’t letting those players go — maybe the problem is to this point not successfully being able to replace them.
Cap management, roster construction (draft and free agency), game day roster management (Schoen is part of that as well as Daboll) can all be criticized. Mostly, it is how much of the blame for the lack of success for 2023 does ownership believe lands at the feet of Daboll rather than Schoen. Do they believe some of those players who have failed have done so because of coaching, or because of Schoen’s evaluation?
Another factor has to be how much appetite ownership has for completely blowing up the organization and starting over for the second time since 2022 and third time since hiring Dave Gettleman at the end of 2017.
More performances like Thursday night’s will change the equation for both the GM and head coach. If it looks like progress is being made, why would ownership blow it up?
Rory Costello asks: If Wilson and Winston both remain Giants for the rest of this season, and neither plays a down, how much value for money is the team getting with mentorship of Dart?
Ed says: Rory, it is easy to say the Giants paid Russell Wilson $10 million and all they got for their money was three losses. I do believe Wilson’s professionalism and approach to his job has been beneficial to everyone on the team who has bothered to pay attention, not just to Jaxson Dart. Is that worth $10 million when they already had Jameis Winston, who is also a great teammate and a great example of how to go about rebuilding a reputation that early in his career was not good?
Probably not. Especially when you consider how the Giants are scraping for pennies to stay under the cap to get through the season.
Rafael Gonzalez asks: As soon as Nabers was officially known he would miss the season, if I was GM, I would:Call Chargers and offer them Evan Neal and Jalin Hyatt for their No. 4 WR, Tre Harris.He was Jaxson Dart’s favorite receiver at Ole Miss. He was drafted in the 2nd round. If I need to add a 6th-round pick to get it done, I would. Next year Dart and Harris can become the next Burrow and Chase.
Ed says: Rafael, you never actually asked a question. The idea that Dart and Tre Harris could be the equivalent of Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase, though, is so ludicrous I had to comment on it.
Ja’Marr Chase was the No. 5 overall pick in 2021 NFL Draft. He caught 81 passes for 1,455 yards and 13 touchdowns as a rookie. Tre Harris is a second-round pick, No. 55 overall, who has caught three passes in five games and can barely get on the field for the Chargers. These two things are NOT the same.
Just because Harris and Dart had success in college doesn’t mean that would happen in the NFL. Juice Wells played with Dart last season at Ole Miss. He was with the Giants as an undrafted free agent this summer. He didn’t do anything, got cut, and is currently out of the league.
That said, if the Chargers were foolish enough — and I seriously doubt they are — to give up a guy they just selected in the second round for two spare parts the Giants can’t use then by all means I would do that deal.
Blair Geddes asks: I realize there are many more important questions to ask about the Giants.
Having said that, if you could tolerate another repetitive question about Evan Neal, why the heck is he even still on the roster? After four years, they won’t play the guy, so why waste a spot on the roster?
Ed says: Blair, thank you for guaranteeing that we did not get through a mailbag without an Evan Neal question. Would it be a real mailbag if we did?
That said, I want to believe that Neal is still on the roster because he is a 25-year-old player and the organization still believes there is a chance he can develop into a useful guard.
There is, though, another factor. Money. Neal is on the final year of his four-year, $24.5 million rookie contract. He carries a $7.811 million cap hit. The Giants recoup none of that by cutting him. The only way they get any of that money back is by trading him. Even then, if I understand his contract correctly, it is only going to be whatever portion of his $1.1 million base salary for this remains if and when he gets traded. So, they would basically be saving peanuts.
Lou Catalano asks: A great win last night, spoiled only by the appearance of Russell Wilson.
Given the extremely negative fan reaction to his entry into the game and the unbelievably bad pass attempt he made shortly afterwards, can you envision Wilson either asking for, and being granted, his release, or even more drastically, the Giants simply releasing him outright? The fans in attendance surely did not want him on the field. Evidently there is virtually no interest in Wilson around the league as shown by Cincinnati not even reaching out to the Giants before trading for Joe Flacco. Would the Giants be better served by having Jameis Winston serve as the backup QB and by signing someone else to be on the practice squad?
Ed says: Lou, I think the time will come later this season or next season when Winston is the backup quarterback.
Right now, Wilson is an asset. Is he a valuable one the Giants might be able to get something for in a trade? Maybe. Maybe not. If I am running the Giants I am in no hurry to make any sort of Wilson decision right now. There are three games to be played before the Nov. 4 trade deadline. I am not releasing Wilson until after the deadline passes. Maybe there isn’t any interest today. What if a contending team loses its quarterback in the next couple of weeks? Maybe that changes. If the Giants were to bump him down to QB3 before the deadline that, to me, would likely destroy a chance of getting something for him. So, I’m not doing that, either.
If you want to make him inactive or release him after the trade deadline, fine. Not now.
Michael Glenn asks: Have you ever had a chance to talk with Daboll and Kafka about how they bury players on the offensive side? Specifically Hyatt and Neal. It seems like a conscious decision not to throw the ball to Hyatt. The defense has to take his lack of targets when he is on the field into account when scheming. Neal would help with the run game. With a running QB it makes sense to give him a shot, but again it seems like they stubbornly refuse to consider the change. I don’t notice these same decisions on defense. Daboll comes off as someone who is very stubborn, to the point of hurting the team, to be right. What are your firsthand experiences and thoughts on this?
Ed says: Michael, I’m not buying the idea that the coaching staff “buries” players. I think the coaching staff uses the players they believe are the best and can help them the most. Hyatt is not better than Malik Nabers, Darius Slayton, or Wan’Dale Robinson. Without Nabers and Slayton, he got an opportunity Thursday night and took advantage of it. So did Lil’Jordan Humphrey.
If Neal was better than Greg Van Roten, Jon Runyan, or Aaron Stinnie he would be getting an opportunity. How many chances did the Giants give Deonte Banks before committing fully to Cor’Dale Flott on Thursday night?
Submit a question
Have a Giants-related question? E-mail it to [email protected] and it might be featured in our weekly mailbag.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: There were a lot of long-winded rants thinly-disguised as questions with a “your thoughts?” or “what do you think?” at the end of them sent to the mailbag this week. I did not answer those. If you really just want to rant, you can use ‘The Feed’ and create a post there.]
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